


les augures printaniers

by ahala



Category: Ancient History RPF, Julius Caesar - Shakespeare
Genre: Angst, Difficult Decisions, M/M, Messy Romans, Missing Scene, Non-traditional Relationship, Self-Sacrifice, as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22030444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahala/pseuds/ahala
Summary: the discussion that leads to lucilius dressing up as brutus and that whole ordeal. please tell me to stop neglecting all of my multi-chapter works
Relationships: Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger/Lucilius, plus antony if you squint
Kudos: 5





	les augures printaniers

The air was growing thin. Brutus could feel it in his chest, in his throat. It was humid and cloudy, and he realised that they had disappeared into the clouds settled over the mountains they gazed upon just that morning. It hadn’t rained, thank goodness. Getting up the steep trails paved with embedded boulders and thick, fertile mud was hard enough without a cascade of autumnal rain to battle up the rough mountainside. To make matters worse, it was no steady journey, but a chase, an exodus, fleeing the steadily approaching opposition that always seemed to be closing the precious ground between them. 

Brutus had a frequent cycle of scouts riding back to see the enemy, and forth to see the rest of the path, and back to Brutus with every detail they could muster. Things were getting harrier, much more complex as the path roughened and the army at their heel quickened. The circumstances were becoming much more dire, and as Brutus thought in silence atop his charger, he warned him against rash action. Despite the freneticism of the matter, it was no reason, there would never be a reason, to act like a dying animal, throwing everything to the wayside for survival. Life was fickle, but legacy was not. So, in his state of pondering, he decided to stop for the night at an abandoned outpost supposedly another mile out. He sent a small group ahead to it to take care of any wayfarers taking shelter there, and sent a runner back down the line to pass the word to his officers. 

With the setting sun came an anxiety as thick as the fog that sat over the high fells of the range. The ruins of the outpost did well enough to shield the soldiers from the bitter wind that came down the mountain. It could be heard howling around the stone walls that were still standing, echoing through the cliffs of stone and slate. Fires slowly came to life despite the gusts, making the camp seem like a bush laden with cherries. The game was alright in spite of the weather, which kept spirits hopeful at the very least, with temporary safety and a full belly, close to the stars even if they could not be seen.

Lucilius pushed the tent flap back without announcing himself, tying the leather cord behind him as the wind tried to push its way in. The tent was as warm as it could be given the circumstances, with a small fire crackling in a pit dug into a patch of soft soil. The sheets on Brutus’s cot were pulled up messily, and he saw that Brutus, who was sitting at his desk, his back to Lucilius, had pulled the heaviest blanket and wrapped it around himself. It was a bit of an uncharacteristic sight, even at such a late hour in the cold. There was something quite odd about the disarray in the tent that Brutus not only allowed but caused, not to mention the childish way he bundled himself in the blanket, even as he examined a topographic map of the mountain range. Lucilius didn’t know to see this as weakness.

“Marcus,” he said quietly, his hand gently coming to rest on Brutus’s shoulder. He jumped out of his skin like a taut bowstring released prematurely.

“Oh, it’s you.” His shoulders relaxed. “Is something the matter?” 

“No, no. The camp is settled and I sent patrols out, and the night guard is set.”

“Good,” Brutus sighed, though far from content. He rubbed his eyes deep and straightened his back. “What do you need, then? Sit, please,” he gestured quickly, then stood to take the stationary off of the other chair. 

“I wanted to check in on you, sir.”

“It’s  _ sir _ now, is it?” 

“Marcus,” Lucilius corrected himself with a smile as he sat down. 

“Caius.”

“Well? Are you well?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve eaten?”

“I have."  


"And drank?"

"That as well."

“You have water to wash?”

“I do.”

“You are comfortable?”

“As much as I am allowed to be. Do I pass your inspection?”

“My inspection has proven you to be alive, but if you are well is yet to be seen. But I will relent this once.” It was a struggle to resist the urge to hold Brutus’s chin, stroke the bags under his eyes, the wrinkles that began to betray his age. As blurred as their lines from superior to inferior had become, some things would always be unwelcome in this setting. Contubernal banter was one thing, fondling was another. Brutus stood, folding the map tersely in a way where Lucilius was unable to see what he had been working on. He took the blanket and spread it on his cot, tucking it in haphazardly before he went to the fire, holding his hands over it. 

They were suspended in a glaring silence for a while, Brutus watching the flames while Lucilius stared at him expectantly. Fat drops of rain began to hit the canvas tent, turning into a heavy spatter. Footfalls passed in the mud. The firewood crackled, and Brutus gave a punctuating sigh as he looked up. “Is there something you want to t-”

“Yes, there is. You won’t want to hear it.”

Brutus straightened inquisitively. “I’m listening.”

“Logistically, statistically, our forces cannot keep up like this, in these conditions, at this rate, with our supplies, and expect to escape this without mass loss, whether it be supplies or manpower. I know you know this to be true, and unfortunately, many others do as well. This is a very common and very plausible end, and one that I would face happily if it were to be mine, but I don’t think it is necessary. Time is our greatest adversary now. I can distract Antony’s forces long enough to give you a great deal of time to get safely out of the mountains with as little loss as possible. I’ll don your armour and travel back a ways with a few soldiers while you continue on, and you will be safe while the opposition is still here reeling from the confusion.

“If I travel at dusk, the dark will blot out our differences. No one will tell us apart. Besides, the disruption will cause them to stop wherever they are for the night to figure out what has happened, and to question me. They might wait until the morning to question me, in which case you have the night and half a day. If they decide to do it that night, they will be overtired and out of their minds by the morning. It’s more than adequate time to greaten the distance between us, so much so that they might grow discouraged and turn back.” They looked similar even in the dim, flickering light of the tent. In the heavy fog and the grey light, any difference in visage would be obsolete. Lucilius knew that Antony’s men were just as miserable in the bleak mountain pass and would jump at the sight of any brown-haired man in Brutus’s armour. The chance of success of this plan was not what made it so problematic, however. 

“ _ What? _ ” Brutus recoiled suddenly. “Absolutely not.”

“Is this not your only option?”

“It is not,” he snarled. “We can make it out of here or linger and fight if the need arises. There is no need for deception and... _ cowardice _ .”

“Don’t be delusional,” Lucilius said hotly, blatantly untoward. “You know that this is the path of least resistance.”

“The path where you pull a flagrant charade and endanger yourself and others for the chance of extra time and an easy way for you to excuse yourself from this situation? Least resistance, indeed.”

Lucilius was taken aback. The twisting of his own words left his tongue lame and useless, shocked at how easily this was turned around, and just as surprised that he didn’t see it coming. Brutus was a politician first, after all. All Lucilius could do was fling insults.“ _ You _ are a sanctimonious bastard.”

“Yes, and you’re fighting for a sanctimonious bastard, so what does that make you?”

“A damned fool, because you’re certainly not using me for anything else. You made me an officer, and for what? It isn’t like you listen to me, or even trust me. I gave you the best plan anyone’s come up with since we entered these godforsaken mountains, and you shoot it down because it doesn’t fit this image in your head of how this war is supposed to go. Here’s your alternative: your men get sick and hungry and cold and lose faith in the cause, and before Antony can even make it up here, your troops have deserted or mutinied. Those are the facts. I’m sorry this is no  _ Anabasis _ or  _ Epigoni _ , but you’ve come to a crossroad, and I know you know which path to take. Let me do this, Brutus, you know I’m more than capable.”

“I know you are, but I cannot allow it.”

“Why not? Is it your pride?”

“No-”

“Your animosity?”

“ _ No- _ ”

“Your-”

“ _ I am concerned about  _ you,” Brutus snapped, and the heat of his emotion threatened to crack the ice of his frozen exterior. “I don’t…” he breathed heavily, hotly, strangled by his own constitution. “I don’t want something to  _ happen _ to you.”

Lucilius steeled himself against his temptation to throw himself into Brutus’s embrace and promise to remain devoted by his side, as he always had for years before. “This is war, Brutus.”

“ _ Do you think I haven’t realised that? _ ” He hissed. The acid in his voice was like venom lashing out and burying itself in Lucilius’s heart. “I cannot lose you as well, Lucilius.” Anyone eavesdropping beyond the canvas tent and the wind just outside out it would have heard a commander in strategic need of retaining his lieutenant. But Lucilius gazed into his stricken eyes, saw the lifetime of memories twitch at the corner of his lips. It was so much more. 

He reached out to him once again, hands clasping Brutus’s shoulders and squeezing gently, trying to reaffirm the skittish man he had always known him to be. “Antony will look after me; I will never be lost,” he said quietly.

Brutus’s gaze fell to the ground, and for a long while, the wind spoke in their silence, howling a tale from one hundred fathoms away. When Brutus spoke, his voice was suddenly drained of its vitriol. He had little energy to be angry any longer. “How can you guarantee that?”

“I can’t,” Lucilius admitted, “but I cannot guarantee anything these days. Sometimes, our faith, dear Brutus, should not be in ourselves, but in the stars." It was a difficult contrast to master in wartime, given the necessity for merit and responsibility, the reliance on strategy and tact. And yet, flexibility with luck and the unknown, yielding to that which could not be controlled, was just as imperative. It was the meditative balance that held the cosmos in place, and its discord made the world seem like it was falling apart. "Let me do this,  _ please _ , let me love you the only way I can anymore.”

“Pray, don’t say that.”

“What, that I love you? That I am in love with you?”

“You already ask too much of me, asking that I let you go,” he said. Lucilius knew that was as close as Brutus would dare to admit that his feelings were requited.

"And you ask too much of _me_ , trying to keep me from doing my duty." Lucilius lowered his voice gently as the reason behind Brutus's stricken aversion dawned on him. "This isn't death, my friend. This isn't forever." Part of him wanted to go on, launch into verses regarding his choices, and Brutus's responsibility, and the reassurance that this wasn't a suicide, but he knew it would be disrespectful and presumptuous. Brutus was not conducive to those matters of injury and the sickness in his mind that he dismissed as weakness, and Lucilius knew there was no point in trying to change the parts of him that were so stubbornly ingrained, they were part of his personality. 

"That's just as well, as I'll be wanting my armour back," Brutus said slowly.

"I'll take good care of it in the meantime."

"And of yourself as well. I will search for your name in the stars."

Outside, the wind continued to howl, and the night sky was black and murky with clouds. 


End file.
